With our son, Tom, back home in Connecticut for just a week from Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, we’ve tried to pack in an abundance of such favorite activities as whitewater kayaking, frigid plunges in the lake and running with friends on River Road in Mystic.

One adventure remained unfulfilled, though, stymied by persistently rotten weather: A kayak voyage from Noank to Fishers Island to view harbor seals that spend cold-weather months here before swimming back to the Gulf of Maine and points north in late spring.

The rain finally eased up on Thursday, so Tom and I loaded my 22-foot tandem on the car and drove to a public launch at Esker Point, the same put-in we and other paddlers have used for years. The forecast called for clearing skies, but a light drizzle fell as we began paddling due south in Palmer Cove toward Fishers Island Sound.

“What’s with all this blankety-blank fog?” I grumbled, straining to watch for shoals as we passed Whaleback Rock.

Seconds later a shiny black head surfaced about 10 feet off our bow.

“Seal!” we exclaimed, just as the marine mammal ducked back under.

“He’ll come up behind us,” I predicted. As if on cue, its head popped up off our stern. Seals are curious but wary, and often follow kayaks surreptitiously. One trick to maximize viewing is to paddle backwards. Occasionally seals also lunge completely out of the water and hit the water with a great splash.

Encountering one so close to Connecticut was a good sign that the best was yet to come after we entered New York waters in a couple miles and approached Fishers Island’s north shore. Then again, there was all that stinking fog.

“Totally socked in!” I groaned. Tom pulled out his compass and checked our heading.

I had been steering for Hungry Point near the island’s eastern tip, where scores of seals fish and bask like mermaids on rocks, but neither of us wanted to stray too far southeast into the chaotic Wicopessett Passage, or beyond into the open Atlantic, where marine advisories had warned of 4-foot storm swells. We decided on a more southerly course.

It turned out to be a perfect heading – once the fog briefly lifted we could see Hungry Point dead ahead, and 10 minutes later the air was filled with guttural barks, bawls, bellows and grunts from several dozen seals sprawled on boulders.

“I’ve never heard them so vocal,” I said. They sounded less like harbor seals and more like the Stellar sea lions Tom and I observed last year off the Oregon coast.

Though it was tempting to paddle closer we gave them a wide berth. The Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits humans from getting closer than 150 feet from seals, dolphins and porpoises.

“I keep at least 200 feet away” when leading kayak tours in Washington, Tom said. “They use a lot of energy getting into the water” when humans approach, he added.

So we steered past Hungry Point into East Harbor, beached our kayak and watched them from a shore point sufficiently distant to prevent a mass exodus. It was great fun: They squirmed, wriggled and slithered over the rocks, all the while maintaining a cacophonous chorus.

After about 15 minutes I noticed the fog, which initially seemed to be lifting, now settled in more thickly than ever.

“We’d better rock and roll,” I said.

So Tom and I clambered back aboard and began paddling west past Brooks Point and across Chocomount Cove. We used Tom’s compass and the sound of a lawnmower west of Clay Point to help navigate.

Once again the sky brightened as we approached West Harbor, so Tom and I decided rather than paddle directly back across to Noank we would detour to one of the best sites on Fishers Island: Isabella Beach.

We’ve often visited this prized location on the Atlantic side of the island during 18-mile circumnavigations, but on Thursday we elected to beach our kayak in West Harbor and stroll about a mile across the island.

Thundering surf crashed on the cobblestone beach, which was nearly enveloped in pea soup fog.

“Sure am glad we didn’t decided to paddle around today,” I said.

“Good call,” Tom agreed.

Tom would be leaving in a couple days, followed not long afterward by the seals. It was perfect timing that their visits overlapped.

The seals won’t return until fall; my wife and I hope we won’t have to wait that long to see our son again.